(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to furniture feet for sofas and the like and, more particularly, to a furniture foot assembly including a foot support block adapted to receive a furniture foot.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
The retail furniture business has become extremely competitive in recent years, especially in the high volume/low price realm, so manufacturers are constantly searching for ways to improve quality while reducing costs. Two methods often employed are material substitution and reduction of cube (volume) in shipping. While new materials can be substituted for internal components, little has been done to reduce cube in shipping because the products' standard size and image are usually not changeable.
One of the few places that both cost savings actions can be employed is in the feet used on such items as easy chairs and sofas. These feet have traditionally been wood but, in recent times, lower cost plastic feet have been substituted. The production and material costs for plastic feet are much lower on a per unit basis than wooden feet. In addition, plastic feet often can be added to the furniture more easily after it has been shipped, so that the cube of the shipped product is reduced. Also, because of the nature of plastic, a small shaft or stem can be formed at the top of the foot integrally with the body of the foot. This stem can be made sufficiently strong to be driven into holes in the furniture frame, thereby speeding up the assembly process.
A stem of similar small section cannot be formed in wood because it would be too weak to withstand the side pressure to which it would be exposed. In addition, it would not be resilient and have the memory to "grasp" the hole into which it is inserted. Accordingly, wooden feet often required the use of a metal threaded rod for attachment.
However, plastic feet have a tendency to loosen over time and drop out when the furniture is moved. This results in a perception of poor quality and customer dissatisfaction. Thus, there was a need for a plastic foot design that could be successfully driven into the furniture frame and not turn or work loose.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,088,669, issued to the Assignee of the present invention, substantially solved this problem by providing a furniture foot including a body and a specially designed stem having a hollow cross-section. The stem has a length greater than the thickness of a lower portion of an item of furniture and a diameter slightly larger than the diameter of a hole formed in the lower portion of the furniture. The stem extends through the hole so that the body of the foot is adjacent the lower portion. The lower portion of the furniture somewhat compresses the hollow stem within the hole to form a interference, frictional fit within the hole. This secures the foot in place on the lower portion of the furniture. In the preferred embodiment, the stem has a plurality of ribs which are either tapered or do not extend the full length of the stem, thereby allowing the ribs to be more easily pressed into the lower portion of the item of furniture and, in addition, which inhibit rotation of the foot in the hole. The entire disclosure of this patent is hereby incorporated by reference.
As discussed above, the lower portion of the furniture has generally been a wooden corner block attached between two perpendicular wooden rails forming one of the generally four corners of the item of furniture such as a sofa or easy chair. Plastic corner blocks offer some advantages such as a more consistently square corner frame but have generally been too costly because of the amount of material needed to provide the necessary strength to attach the plastic corner block to the frame and support the weight on the furniture foot. In addition, the amount of material needed can produce an unsightly edge along the bottom of the item of furniture. Finally, prior art plastic corner blocks often required barb nuts or the like to provide sufficient attachment of the threaded feet to the block. Not only do these items add cost, they are also difficult to repair when they occasionally come loose since the bottom covering of the item of furniture must be removed to reattach the foot to the corner block. One example of such a prior art corner block is an item FS952 available from the carv/craft.RTM. Division of PI, Inc. in Athens, Tenn.
Thus, there remains a need for a new and improved furniture foot assembly which is strong and lightweight and cost effective and does not produce an unsightly edge while, at the same time, does not use barb nuts or the like to provide sufficient attachment of the furniture foot.